


The Hanged Man

by ExplicitlySimple



Series: Tarot Readings [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Baltimore, Canon Compliant, For the most part, Kidnapping, Multi, No one important dies, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21906781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExplicitlySimple/pseuds/ExplicitlySimple
Summary: The Hanged Man: they who understand that their current situation represents surrender, patience, sacrifice and progress.Set during the post-Baltimore game riot. Neil knows a thing or two about surrender and sacrifice.
Relationships: Neil Josten & The Foxes (All For The Game)
Series: Tarot Readings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1577980
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	The Hanged Man

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by a suit within tarot, the Major Arcana

_The Hanged Man: surrender, suffering, sacrifice, patience_

Card 12 of the Major Arcana

_“Good god how much I have suffered, but serenely, because I understood that what I endured was nothing, just a caress compared to the world’s boundless misfortune.” - Nikos Kazantzakis_

Neil remembers the advertisement the clearest. After Nathan caught up with them in Seattle, after the shoot-out in the middle of the street, after distant sirens rang through the still air of dawn and Nathan’s face split into a cruel smirk watching his mother clutch her side. After the squealing of the tires as Neil escaped in a haze of panic. After the ragged, rattling gasps of his mother in the backseat slowed in frequency and strength. It’s the ad he comes back to in his memories.

Their car burns in the background, a beacon of light welcoming the morning into Neil’s misery. He hears the crackling of the leather seats, the quiet whinging of warping metal, the whoosh and collapse of his mother’s bones into a pile. He can’t watch.

Instead, Neil sniffles into the arm of his hoodie. There is a tight fire between his eyes he begs himself to hold in, but at another crack of flame, the fire within him grows and grows until he can’t contain it. He spills and spills out on the sand, stitched up by his hoodie but flowing out of every opening. His grief is larger than the sea, than the map of their manhunt. Neil never knew something besides fear ran this deep. He feels it grounding him to this moment, settling into the soles of his feet. He will never be able to outrun this moment. Neil’s grief is a shadow that leaves a trail. 

By the sea, everything is windier. Neil hates how the wind pushes air into the fire, forcing it to burn brighter and hotter. A whistle of air by his air makes him pull his hoodie closer to his ears despite the residual heat of his make-shift cremation.

Neil nearly misses the sound the paper makes when it flaps against the sand. It’s half buried but not far enough that he would rip it. Tugging, he pulls out a brittle slightly faded picture. It could be an ad, judging by the captions neatly stacked in the bottom corner. But Neil can’t discern what it's selling besides… an oxygen mask? 

A woman floats in the middle of a room under a chandelier, body poised as if dropped, arms twisted above her head. Air bubbles float up around her. Chairs and side tables sit peacefully, unaware that they are submerged in water. Hazy pale light drifts into the room through transparent curtains. At the very top of the image, Neil sees the edge of water. He traces the barrier between breathing and drowning with his finger, tuning back into the cracking and snapping of the fire. The woman hangs like a question mark, suspended in the air where she makes odd look natural. 

His duffel bag knocks against his hip as he walks away. Mary Hatford is buried under the sand in her coffin of zippers and nylon. The car sits burned out and hollow. The advertisement flies back into a memory. 

-

Neil never forgot the advertisement. He thinks about it now, the woman in the water, as Romero’s presses cool metal into his lower back. Around him, there’s nothing but noise and action. Lola cuts neatly through her little mob, uncaring as she shoves fans and goonies aside. Neil hears the cursing, panicked and angry, of Wymack as he struggles to keep eyes on his team. People jostle them around, knees connecting with stomachs and elbows with noses. In front, a delighted laugh sounds of Lola. Romero urges him forward with another push to his back. 

As they push him into the trunk, mob riot tucked cleanly behind them, Neil thinks of how the woman in the ad must of felt before jumping into the water. The hesitance in whether the water would welcome her, if it would shock her with the temperature, if she would accidentally breathe water. He stares around him at the inky blackness of the interior, notices the curl of his body around the restraints. She too became a question mark in the water: what would become of them? 

Panic laces through Neil when Lola climbs in, soaked cloth gripped tightly in her hands. As she clamps the chloroform over his nose, Neil revises his earlier thought.  _ This is what the woman staring up at air saw.  _ His thoughts slow as the edges of his vision darken.  _ She saw light she couldn’t touch and something she couldn’t breathe.  _ Neil’s breathing evens out in a slow drawl, thoughts lingered on one sentence.  _ She saw hope too far out of reach.  _

When he wakes, it is to pain and pain and pain. At some point Neil knows he resists and is promptly punished for it. He knows that he begs and cries and gets his face sliced up for it. He knows that he curses Lola and Romero and his father and everyone he can think of. The pain does not stop even when his words do. 

In between Lola cutting into his arms, Neil thinks of his team. He names them, one by one: Dan, Allison, Renee, Matt, Aaron, Nicky, Kevin, Andrew.  _ Andrew.  _ The angry shuffling of the crowd rings loudly in his ear. He hears Wymack shouting “Get off them! Move!” in all his gruffness. Focusing on them blocks out Lola’s deranged monologuing. Focusing on his Foxes makes what he has to do all the clearer. 

He had to let them go. Neil Josten lived a short life, but by God was it a full life. He lived and did it all as a giant fuck you to Nathan and the Moriyamas. He played his all on the court and gave nothing less. And they all let him. His team, his Foxes, let him in despite his distance. They wanted to know him when he didn’t want to know himself. Matt watched movies with him. Allison shopped with him. Nicky tried to make him laugh. Kevin trained him. Dan advised and led him. And they all trusted him. For some insane and nonsensical reason, they trusted him when he could have gotten them killed. 

And  _ Andrew.  _ He gave him a home. He placed the most trust in Neil out of everyone. If Neil could used his fingers, he would trace the outline of a key. But thinking too much about them and what they gave him outweighed the physical pain Neil experienced. Thinking about everything they had hurt too much. Thinking about everything they didn’t have yet hurt more. Neil wouldn’t have the opportunity to create those memories. 

Choking back a pained gasp at Lola’s newest cut, Neil bites down on his lip. Neil Josten had to die in this car. If he didn’t, his team would be at danger. Before them, Neil always ran with a shadow. And it was a cruel fate, a sad existence. He wouldn’t do that his team. They had too much of a life in front of them. He wouldn’t put them in danger anymore. If anything happened to them because of Neil, anything more than his presence already caused… Neil bites his lip again. 

Lola laughs mockingly behind him. The cigarette lighter pops up in front of him, red ring glowing in the dark car. Outside the windows, the tree line speeds by. Neil recognizes this stretch of highway. One exit, five streets away from his childhood home. Anxiety settles into his stomach and his resolve hardens. 

Nathaniel Wesninski. A scream escapes him when Lola drags the lighter over the skin of his cheek. He thinks again of this pain as symbolic. A savage part of him wants to smile. They can take his life away but they can’t take the memory of the Foxes away from him. He’ll swallow the agony of his burning cheeks, hands, forearms, fingers. He would give it all to Nathan if it meant his grave held only him. 

-

The basement floor is just as cold as Neil remembers it. The drain sits innocuous in the middle of the floor, knives suspended off the wall. Light glints off the sharp metal. Everything is sterile, clinical. Neil idly hopes that Nathan’s place in hell is a disgusting and disorganized spot. He hopes Nathan drowns in all the blood these tiles have seen. 

Neil hopes and remembers lots of things. Like how he hopes it isn’t Nathan’s heavy and slow steps coming down the stairs. Hopes it isn’t his blood slowly spilling out among the tile. Hopes, even as Nathan kicks him against his ribs, that this pain means something. As Lola digs into his open wounds and purrs at Nathan, Neil hopes. 

Closing his eyes against that icy identical blue, Neil prays into the universe:  _ Keep them safe. Let me be the end of it.  _

Despite the terror paralyzing him at the thought of this being the end, of him dying at the hands of this massive coward incapable of love and undeserving of the title father, Neil knows it might just be. He probably will die in this basement. He’ll die knowing what consideration tastes like, but he will die nonetheless. At least he’ll die and they’ll be fine. They’ll find a new striker. They’ll move on because they have no choice but to. Neil’s memories will get dissected into pieces and disposed of in lakes, parks and dirt. Andrew’s voice calling him a martyr pulls a pained whimper out of him. 

Nathan looms over him cleaver in hand, hair slicked back and shirt pressed neatly. His eyes are angry and pitying and disgusted. Neil spits in his face. 

His brief moment of resistance breaks when Nathan swings the cleaver down. Using his striker reflexes, Neil rolls over a split second later. Enraged, Nathan lunges forward again. The rapid succession of gunfire outside disrupts Nathan’s next swing, enough for Neil to crawl away. The basement lights flicker out. Above head, more gun-fire pours into the basement. Neil squeezes his eyes shut and attempts to curl into himself as much as his tortured body allows. Voices shout, a cacophony of panic and noise. Nathan’s men reach for their weapons, too late to draw before their bodies are littered with bullet holes. The resounding thuds punctuate the silence. 

Lola growls out a curse before a single shot adds another thud to the silence. An accented voice spits “Nathan” before two more shots ring out. Nathan rattles out a breath before slumping. 

With hope and memory and everything else he can hold onto, Neil pushes himself onto his knees. His palms scream from the effort. He grits his teeth and drops his head, arms spread in surrender. Neil doesn’t know who he is surrendering to. He doesn’t know if he’ll be next with a bullet in the head. But he was so close to death and this doesn’t feel the same so he’ll lean into it. Neil leaves his hands up and lets himself be seen. 

The basement is still until industrial boots step into Neil’s field of vision. Light floods over him and his wounds are left to be picked out, observed, assessed. A gloved hand tips his chin up and Neil stares up at his uncle, a gun held firmly to his chest. 

“You’re safe, Nathaniel. You’re not going to be a sacrifice tonight.” 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! kudos and comments appreciated. this is the first of an ongoing series of short stories based on the Major Arcana so tune in for some more tarot fun or angst or whatever my little brain thinks up 
> 
> picture referenced is "the girl in the water" by phoebe rudomino 
> 
> much love xoxo - E.S


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